David Leadbetter's new book: The A Swing, the Alternative Approach to Great Golf

If the game of golf handed out some sort of
longevity award, David Leadbetter would be
among only a handful of instructors meriting
the honor. Although technically considered a
modern teaching professional, Leadbetter has
been analyzing golf swings for nearly 40 years.
I’d venture to guess he’s conducted tens of
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of
lessons during that timespan.

His most famous pupil, of course, was golf
legend Nick Faldo. He and Leadbetter wrote the
book, figuratively and literally, on swing
reconstructions. It’s a substantive story that’s
been told and re-told over the years, and the
effect of Faldo’s post swing-change success
made Leadbetter one of the most sought-after
instructors in the game. Perhaps one
disadvantage gained from all that publicity is
that every subsequent relationship naturally
ended up being compared to the work he did
with the six-time major winner. If you only
listen to his most vocal critics, you would come
away thinking that Leadbetter never coached
another successful pro golfer. But in actuality,
his students have combined to win hundreds of
professional tournaments, including 19 major
championships, while four separate players
took turns holding the top spot in the Official
World Golf Ranking.

David Leadbetter demonstrates
the more compact motion of the A
Swing

Over time, Leadbetter successfully leveraged
his brand recognition as a world-class teaching
professional into a multi-faceted business
model that includes 24 full-time golf academies
around the world, Leadbetter-branded golf
training aids and instructional videos. He’s also
authored seven golf books, including a brand
new one called, The A Swing: the
Alternative Approach to Great Golf.

In the new book, Leadbetter
offers up some unconventional ideas about the
golf swing. Mainly, that the “model” backswing
we tend to see day in and day out on the Pro
tours is too difficult to master for most amateur
players. In the A Swing, Leadbetter shows
golfers how to take the club back on a steeper
plane, in unison with the turning of their core.
It’s a shorter, more compact backswing that
puts the player in a position to engage their
natural athletic ability to deliver the club at
impact to hit solid shots. The goal is to simplify
the requirements of the golf swing, and one of
the main tenants that gets repeated often is
synchronization. We see it in all good players,
as Leadbetter points out, and we see a total
lack of it in players who struggle.

From a scientific standpoint, the A Swing
is said to adhere to solid fundamental
principles. Together with J.J. Rivet, a leading
biomechanics expert, Leadbetter measured the
efficiency of the A Swing against more
traditional models and found that the hands
traveled 20 percent less in distance than they
did in a traditional swing while shoulder
rotation increased by 10 percent. At the same
time, the more compact method of the A Swing
led to better synchronization between the body
and the movement of the arms and club,
creating better impact conditions and higher
ball speeds.

A side-by-side comparison of a
traditional swing (left) and the A Swing
(right)

When I spoke to Leadbetter recently, I
asked him to summarize the reaction to the A
Swing. As you would expect, he was pretty
upbeat about the way in which it’s been
received by most golfers and swing analysts. At
the same time, he didn’t shy away from
acknowledging the small, but vocal minority
that haven’t endorsed the A Swing philosophy.

“Overall I’m really pleased with it.
Obviously it’s different and it’s caused a little
bit of controversy shall we say in certain circles
because we know golf is very traditionalist,” he
says. “But the biggest thing is that it’s created
a platform where people can talk about things
that are different from the norm.”

In our conversation, which spanned
nearly an hour over the phone, Leadbetter
discussed how the main elements of the A
Swing work, offered his opinion on why so
many recreational players struggle with the full
swing and reflected back on his career as a golf
instructor.

Q&A with
David Leadbetter

J.J. Rivet mentions that the
origins of what would become the A Swing took
shape during a visit with you in 1998. Obvious
question, but what took so long to document
the components of the A Swing and release a
book?

It certainly wasn’t finalized back in
1998. This was my first instruction book in 10
years essentially and I really wanted to make
sure that when I was finally ready to bring
another book out it would have a bit more of
scientific background attached to it. J.J. and I
did a lot of research about the swing with the
facility he has down in France which is a
designated European Tour facility.
He gets a lot of European tour players coming
down just to sort of have an analysis of where
they are [in terms of their game]. So we then
figured out where these guys are stronger and
weaker. And we were able to get together with
their swing coaches and workout people and
pretty much devise a plan.

Once I really felt like I had a handle
on it and was able to express my thoughts in a
really simple fashion I would give it a go. So we
started the actual book about 18 months or so
ago. In the meantime obviously, I had a lot of
thoughts which coincided with my beliefs about
the golf swing. J.J. very kindly said that I was
very lucky from an analysis standpoint because
he said I have biomechanical eyes. Some of the
things that I saw or instinctively felt he was
able to prove scientifically.

Let’s talk about the A
Swing. The A stands for alternative. What are
the fundamental elements that make it so
different from other forms of instruction?

It’s different but it’s not radical.
Coaches, teachers and physiologists will agree
generally speaking that once you get yourself
to the top of the backswing, the actual
sequence of motion starting down - your lower
body then your upper body then your arms and
your hands - in that sort of order is the same.
The thing is - how do you get to that point? To
me, in all the years I’ve been in the game the
thing that has been the most complex for most
golfers is the backswing - trying to get the club
head into a position where you can achieve the
proper downswing. Most players never get
there.

If you think in terms of baseball you
really don’t have much of a backswing. You’re
pretty much in position and you make a
minimal movement and you’re into the hitting
position. But in golf we get so tied up with
trying to make this perfect backswing and for
many golfers trying to achieve that motion on a
consistent basis is extremely difficult. The
essence of this A Swing is really all about
synchronizing. To me that’s sort of a huge
aspect of the swing. Once you synchronize your
arms with the body you then have a chance to
create a lot of consistency. The way I look at it,
ideally, once you complete your body rotation
going back, the club should pretty much
complete its swinging motion to the top. As you
start down, the club should be in sync with the
body.

You mention
synchronization. Why do so many recreational
players struggle with it?

I don’t think many people have a
clue what synchronization even means. When it
happens, it just happens for them and they hit
the ball well. The problem when people think of
“turning” they basically finish their backswing
with their body before the club has even gotten
half-way back. From that point on they now lift
their arms to the top so there’s not that sort of
“synced-up” look where by (as I like to say) the
rotation of the body or coiling of the body
finishes the backswing. In most people’s cases,
their arms zip to the top and as soon as that
happens you’ve now created a whole host of
problems. From then on, how do get the club
back to the ball? Most amateurs will start their
downswing with the arms because the club has
to somehow catch up to the body. So they
throw the club from the top.

The essence of the A Swing is to get
the person in sync. Once they feel coiled and
wound up to whatever extent they can, they
can start forward and the arms and club just
follow.

There’s a chapter in your
book that introduces this concept of the prayer
grip. Can you clarify what it is, and why it’s an
important element of the A Swing?

First of all one of the biggest faults
in golf for most amateurs is the grip. If they
only took half the prayer grip they’d be better
off. Most players (right handed golfers) - the
way they grip the club with their left hand, they
grip it up in the palm. When you do that it
creates a tremendous amount of tension and it
doesn’t create the ability to move the club
freely. What these players generally do is take
the club back with their right hand or they roll
their forearms to get some sort of motion, to
get the club away.

Ben Hogan’s book, as great as it is,
did a disservice to golf by suggesting that
people put the club up in the palm, creating a
whole nation of slicers. Bare in mind that he
had unbelievable flexibility and he was trying to
cure a hook.

Getting the club towards the fingers
which is what this prayer grip does with the left
hand is really important. Now with the right
hand, we suggested that you move it on top, so
you have the left hand in the strong position
and the right hand in the weak position. What
we’re suggesting here is that you eliminate any
sort of face or shaft rotation going back. it
almost feels like it’s going back in a closed
position. This right hand position on top really
discourages the fanning and opening of the
club. When you have your right hand in a
parallel position as is the case in a more
conventional approach, the hand works almost
behind you and hinges back on its self which
tends to get the club too far behind the hands.
What we’re always stressing in the book is -
hands in and the club head out. The hands
move on one track, and the club head moves
on another.

So it’s different, but it really aids
what we’re trying to do. Is it impossible to do
with a normal grip? No, but most players grip
the club in their hands as if they were holding a
putter. Do you have any idea how many lines
I’ve drawn on gloves in my career in order to
place the club in the right position? We’re trying
to encourage proper wrist action. The feedback
we’ve had from people is that they get quite
comfortable with it once they’ve tried it for a
while.

You’ve coached a lot of
great golfers and you’ve observed a lot of great
golf swings, directly and indirectly. What kind of
effect have these players had on you as a
teacher and in developing the A Swing?

Well, Calvin Peete was always one of
my favorite swingers. You talk about somebody
who could hit the ball on a string, that guy did
it! He had to be without a doubt, the most
accurate player to have ever played the game.

I’ve been a big studier of swings
through the years. I look at Jack Nicklaus and
he had traits of the A Swing. If you look back at
his heyday the club was very much up on its
end, very vertical. Everybody has influenced
my philosophy and understanding of the swing.

Unfortunately we get so involved
with power these days, but I think most
amateurs would settle with hitting it straighter,
more consistently. And we have found with the
A Swing, because golfers are more efficient
with the way they swing the club, their ball
speed increased and they hit the ball more
often from the middle of the club face.

Why do so many golfers
struggle making a fluid, athletic swing that
allows them to play competent golf? Is it a case
of too much tinkering? Practicing too little? Or
just a general lack of understanding what
works best for their physical abilities and
limitations?

I probably think it’s a combination of
all that. But I also think quite honestly that
people have too many swing thoughts in their
head and they really can’t create a fluid
motion. [My recommendation] is to make a
bunch of practice swings; do these little
practice exercises in the book to make the
motion that you want. I get a lot of players,
including Lydia Ko, who spends a great deal of
practice time hitting balls with her eyes closed
in order to feel, sense and create a flow you
need or maintain. The problem is the more you
think the tighter you get, and that inhibits any
sort of a natural flow.

How has advances in
technology such as TrackMan influenced your
approach to teaching the golf swing?

A lot has changed as far as how we
analyze the game with launch monitors, 3D
analysis, high-speed video and force plates.
These things give us, as teachers, a lot of
information. But, as I like to say, all it does is
prove your swing - as in, “we got the numbers
to prove it”. Look, it is useful from a standpoint
of being able to quantify different changes. If
you’re a slicer and you have the club swinging
left 14 degrees and then you work on things
and then the numbers say you’re only four
degrees - that’s a huge improvement. It’s a
great a tool for being able to suss out what we
do [as teachers], but it’s a tool like anything
else.

At times, I think it’s probably
overused by certain people. I’m actually glad
that I grew up in an era where I had to use my
eyes and my instincts to teach.

I can’t help but ask you
about Lydia Ko. Naturally, she was already an
accomplished player and a great ball striker
when you and Sean Hogan partnered with her.
Why change her swing pattern, incorporating
elements of the A Swing?

I wouldn’t say she’s a full A Swing. I
would say she’s incorporating a mild, or
medium version of it.

When she came to us she was
already a very accomplished player and had
won a number of tournaments. We were
actually fairly reluctant to even work with her.
But they insisted that they needed to work with
a coach in America and have eyes on her, so to
speak.

So when I looked at Lydia, having
done this as a teacher for many years, the only
thing I had an issue with is that she could not
draw the ball. She could pull it, but she could
not draw it. And when you looked at her build,
let’s face it, power is a factor. I suppose you
can make an argument that she’s a little bit
stronger now, she’s got a new Callaway driver .
. . But she’s 20 yards longer now and she can
move it right to left without sacrificing any
accuracy. So that’s a big, big factor.

Additionally, she had some things
going with her swing which was pretty hard on
her body. She had this sort of wide backswing
and a big movement with the hips. Yeah, at 15
or 16 years of age you can make a lot of things
work, so we made some subtle adjustments.
She still has that beautiful rhythm, but the
swing is a little bit shorter than it was and the
club is coming from quite a different angle,
from a positive direction.

When you look at her success rate
at this point you’d say it hasn’t been too bad a
job. She’s won five more tournaments since
we’ve started working with her.

Lastly, I’d like you to go out
on a limb and make a prediction. How will golf
instruction evolve in the next decade?

Technology will definitely be more
involved. We may get to the point where
someone will be able to start to feel a swing
through some sort of hologram effect. But in
the end, let’s get back to the reason why I
wrote the A Swing in the first place. When you
factor in all the complexity in the world these
days - whether it’s social media, or the use of
iPads, or the bombardment of emails, the fact
remains that if you’re going to be able to play
decent golf - you have to keep it simple, stupid
- as the saying goes. It’s great to have all this
technology but if it’s making the game more
complex we’ll have more people give up the
game out of frustration.